The Call
by s1ncer1ty
Summary: When word began to spread that Thorin Oakenshield was searching for a company of dwarves to fight a dragon and retake their homeland, Fili could hardly resist the call of adventure. The trouble, he knew, would be Kili.


Fili had only ever heard stories of the once-grand city of Erebor, of its winding hall and its deep mines flush with gold. Many a night had he and his younger brother Kili been lulled to sleep with tales of glimmering jewels, the artful craft of master blacksmiths, or of the great armies that stood aside the throne, ready to defend with dying breath the line of Durin. To reclaim such glory, to return the dwarves' rightful home to his now-itinerant kin, filled his very dreams growing up.

When word began to spread that their surviving regent, Thorin Oakenshield, was searching for a company of brave dwarves to fight a dragon - a dragon! - and retake their homeland, Fili could hardly resist the call of adventure.

The trouble, he knew, would be Kili.

Although a formidable fighter by his own right and Fili's junior by just five turns of the seasons, he was reckless, impetuous, and as hard-headed as any dwarf could come. He would insist on joining his brother on a journey that could well mean defeat - or even death - a fate for which Fili could not bear to be responsible.

And so Fili took great pains to remain awake well past the third bell of the night, and he packed his essentials as quickly and furtively as he could manage - no small feat when wrapping and stowing a hefty weight of twin swords and rogue knives. He would slink off into the dark to meet with the grey wizard and join with those adventurers brave enough to accept his quest -adventurers who had known Erebor at its glory, and who would sing great songs of their journeys. By the time Kili awoke, his elder sibling would be long gone.

As he descended a short set of stairs, inwardly wincing as his effects clanked mutely against one another and his feet creaked along the wooden floorboards, he paused to crack the door to Kili's room. Good. A huddled form beneath a heavy tangle of blankets confirmed that the lad was asleep. Fili turned -

Only to run into the very dwarf he'd desperately been hoping to avoid.

Kili, his eyes bright with excitement, had a sack of his own slung across his shoulders. "Bless me, it would seem the rumors are true..."

"No." Fili shook his head firmly. "Oh, no. Absolutely not."

"You aim to join in Thorin's quest!" the brothers echoed in stunned unison.

Kili fixed his sibling with his best smile, one typically used for charming pretty dwarven females or for talking his way out of another lecture from Thorin. "By my whiskers, who's the reckless one now? Sneaking off in the middle of the night without even informing your favorite brother you were intent on joining him?"

"You're my only brother," Fili snapped. "And you don't have any whiskers. Which is why I'm not allowing you to join me. You're too young."

"Hardly much younger than you. And yet here you are, with a knapsack and your swords, ready to slip away at the mere mention of a spot of gold."

"What of you? I'd thought you to be sleeping." In retrospect, Fili should have thought to listen for his brother's telltale snores. "No, you cannot come along. You'll only be in the way."

"I'm going. I've had almost as much training as you with a sword."

"A few years short, you are." Fili crossed his arms overtop his chest and straightened as much as he could. Even then, he only stood eye-to-eye with Kili, who'd shot up several inches taller in recent years, and had not yet begun to fill out in the belly.

"I've got better eyes."

"I'm stronger than you."

"You'll need my bow."

"We'll need fighters."

"Thorin will want scouts."

"_Uncle_ will need _survivors_!" Fili shot back, his cheeks reddening with anger at his brother's persistence.

Kili's smile faltered some, but his voice never lost its humor. "Then don't you think two would be better than one in upping our chances?"

Fili sighed as he struggled to cap his temper. Shouting at Kili would do little more than rile him up, and then he'd never return to the bed where he belonged. "What about the line of Durin? What if I should fall in battle? Someone needs to remain alive."

The smile fell away completely, at that, and Kili's expression took on an unusual seriousness. "By that logic," he said matter-of-factly, yet without any malice, "shouldn't I be the one to go? After all, I'm the spare."

"Stop that nonsense!" Fili frowned, resisting the urge to knock heads with his brother, as if that might somehow beat some sense through his thick skull. "Thorin will marry, after we retake the mountain. He will have children. Heirs. Direct heirs to his throne."

Kili was silent a moment, his head ducking down and brow furrowing deep in thought. Slowly, a sly smile returned to his lips. "So ... you're saying we're both spares?"

Fili did lash out, then, thumping his younger brother upside the head. "That is not what I meant!" he snapped as Kili let out a peal of laughter. "You are infuriating."

"Then it is settled. We join in this great quest together. For the future heirs of Durin!"

Fili pinched the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb, and squeezed shut his eyes; there would be no detaching the determined Kili from his side now. Besides, both dwarves had come of age - though only just, in Kili's case - and Fili by all rights could not order him to remain behind. "There is no way I can convince you to turn back?"

Kili shook his head and patted his brother on the shoulder reassuringly; though he grinned, the light in his eyes was deadly serious. "I'm afraid not. I need you with me. You need me. And, truth be told, I don't know how long I'd last without your blades."

"And I, without your bow," Fili admitted begrudgingly. He reached up to clasp Kili's arm. "Promise me, brother, you'll not be a burden. And you'll not leave my sight."

Kili grinned broadly. "Only if you promise the same."

Unable to resist the eagerness in his brother's expression, Fili finally returned the smile. "A burden?" he chuckled, slinging an arm over Kili's shoulders. "I'll show you what it is to be a burden."

The pair knocked foreheads in dwarvish tradition (Fili suppressing a wince at how hard his little brother could now strike) and as one started off on a path that would lead them to their ultimate fate, and to a guaranteed adventure.


End file.
